


Chosen

by Kennel_Boy



Category: Elfquest
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Graphic Violence, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:13:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kennel_Boy/pseuds/Kennel_Boy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For hundreds of years, Lord Winnowill and her Chosen have protected the desert haven of Sorrow's End from the human threat lurking in the world outside. When marauding, wolf-blooded barbarians attack without provocation,  the Chosen Eight vow to teach them the full depth of that mistake. The outcome of that battle promises to change all three tribes forever.</p><p>Tags will be added as the story develops; please see the first chapter for warnings and a general overview.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Notes

* * *

 

Be warned: this is a really dark AU, and the later chapters will involve torture, rape and other dehumanizing acts, so if reading about any of that would upset you, please click the back button now. For the curious, the genesis of this story is found in several sources:   
  
The first is in Swordman's dom!Rayek fanart over at Y!Gallery. This was initially going to be a PWP based around his "Riding the Wolfs" picture, but then that pesty characterization had to sneak in. There's hardly any of that direct inspiration left save in one important point: this was always going to be a story about the Wolfriders getting screwed (literally and otherwise!). Again, if you're overly fond of Cutter & Co, turning back now might not be the worst idea.  
  
The second influence is a What-If I've had rattling around in my head for a bit, essentially, what would have happened if Winnowill had left Blue Mountain when she made the initial attempt, instead of finding Smelt. That's also morphed quite a bit, as you'll see in the story (sorry, I just couldn't give up Two Edge!), but the germ of that idea is still there.  
  
Another influence is an observation regarding the events around the last few pages of Wolfrider! and Cutter's arrival at Sorrow's End. Despite Bearclaw's hopes, Cutter isn't the one who breaks the cycle of violence -- he didn't take the Wolfriders to new lands until circumstances forced it and lead a raid on the first tribe of elves he met. It was the Sun Villagers under Savah's leadership that turned the Wolfriders to a gentler path. So what might have happened if Savah hadn't been in the picture?  
  
Finally, I wanted to explore just how dark the whole concept of soulnames and Recognition could get. We get glimpses of the power an elf's soulname has in the wrong hands when Winnowill learns Dewshine's in Blue Mountain. Similarly, we saw just how ugly Recognition has the potential to be when Strongbow advocated Cutter raping Leetah to consummate Recognition and no Wolfrider so much as stirred a hair in protest of the idea. By them, advocating rape as easily as one might suggest holding a child's nose and forcing them to take their medicine was a valid POV. It was a chilling, skin-crawling sort of pragmatism and offered a disturbing hint of how things might have been handled in the Wolfriders' history if one participant or the other tried to assert their own will over Recognition. In the later canon, Recognition was pretty well sanitized (some might say overly sanitized, considering how the consent issues inherent in the concept often get glossed over), but I still had a lingering interest in following those sinister threads down, down, down and seeing the end result.  
  
So if any of that sounds remotely interesting and the premise doesn't scare you off, please, read and enjoy.


	2. Arrow

Like the chill of the desert night creeping across the rocky borders of Sorrow's End after the lazy, sun-baked day, unsettling tendrils of memory snaked from their rest to twine through Winnowill's dreams.  
  
In dreaming memory, she stood before Voll's throne again, her head held high and her voice echoing back to her from the vaulted ceiling of living stone as she announced her -- their -- intention to forever depart Blue Mountain. Though part of her ached with the knowledge of what was yet to come, she played her role in the dream, weathering with unflinching calm the greatest rage she had ever witnessed from her lord and lovemate.

"Have you no greater love for me than this, Winnowill? No greater respect?" Voll's words cut off abruptly, as though his anger had outstripped even his ability to voice itself. His furious gaze raked over the small band standing at her back. It lingered on Reevol and Yeyeen, pale, wan Aurek, Arie and little Kureel, and especially the squat, broad-shouldered creature that Winnowill did not have to glance back at to know was poised between attack and flight. The troll, Smelt, had chiseled out his own shallow niche in her heart, but she did not pretend he had the ability to rise above his baser instincts.

**And all of you!** Voll's voice lashed across her mind, snapping her attention forward once more. His was a fury fueled by the pain of betrayal, and the storm of that rage beat against the minds of her followers. Deaf though the troll was to sending, even he braced himself against the flashing steel of Voll's eyes. Now the Lord of the Blue Mountain rose from his throne in a deliberate, stiff-backed hover, urged to flight for the first time in countless years, until he towered over them all. **Is your loyalty to your home and lord so thin that the weight of a fool's fantasy would turn you from them?**

The sting of that dismissal hurt worse than any blow could have. Any chance that there might have been of Winnowill turning from her course died unmourned in that moment.

**Enough, Voll!** The sending snapped between them, bright and jagged lightning to the thunderhead of Voll's fury. She found no pleasure in the surprise that came to Voll's face in the wake of her defiance; never before had she addressed him with such force, let alone as a familiar before the others. **I brought you my fears and my discontent. You brushed them aside. You would call us disloyal? Where dwell the loyalties of a leader who would put his cowardice above the good of those who trust him? Where is the wisdom in condemning your people to an eternity of rot and stagnation within a false Palace, Voll?**

It was a step too far, but even as the sending cut between them, she knew she could not retreat from it. Not now.

The throne chamber shook with Voll's fury and began to fly apart...no! No, it was not anger, but screams that tremored the walls! Her own screams all around, a shrieking gale that pounded Blue Mountain from without and within, shaking her world down to its foundations. A stone cracked free of the and struck Voll's temple, drawing a fount of blood, a moment of liquid brightness in the torchlight before he fell. He fell and the blood continued to gush from his crushed skull, staining his silver hair and seeping into the thirsty sands of the desert...

Winnowill woke gasping. The night wind raced in through the beaded curtains, slicing over the sweat sheening her pearlescent skin. The thin summertime sheets upon the bed were little more than a guard against the sand forever blowing into the village huts, and did nothing to block the cruel and unexpected chill. All the same, she was grateful for the discomfort that drew her fully out of the dream.

Winnowill rose to her feet and reached out for the robe of undyed Preserver silk folded on the low table beside her bed, then wrapped her sleek, willowy body in the insulating material until she ceased shaking. The shame of her failures was never any deeper buried than one layer of memory, but it was rare indeed for so many of them to rise up at once to bite in so deeply.

"Lord Winnowill?"

The voice called from the doorway of her chambers. Always dulcet and now further honeyed with concern, it was a kind distraction, aiding in her retreat from memory.

"I am well, Vurdah." Winnowill poured herself a cup of water from the golden ewer at her bedside. She took one careful sip to chase the sleep from her voice, then she nodded her thanks as her auburn-haired handmaiden took up the ewer for refilling. Sweet Vurdah was far along with her second child and had long ago begun to waddle as she went to and fro about her tasks. Soon Winnowill would need to dismiss her to the care of her lovemates in order to rest and prepare for the birth. "There is nothing amiss here save old dreams."

The words had scarcely left her lips when a frantic sending pierced her newly won calm and transformed her waking to another nightmare.

  
**Lord Winnowill, come quickly! Tyldak is dying!** 

 

* * *

 

 

From Rayek's earliest memories, Kureel had embodied everything that he'd hoped to become as a hunter: swift of hand, eye, and foot; a cunning and tireless tracker of any beast that ran or flew, and fearless in both in his joy of the hunt and his protection of the Sun Village.

But all the long years learning at Kureel's heels and then at his side had also left the younger elf with familiarity enough that he had no hesitation in cursing the most inconvenient of his mentor's peculiarities. Occasionally out loud and at length. Trudging through the predawn desert with a wrapstuffed jackal over one shoulder and a trio of similarly cocooned pups floating behind seemed the perfect occasion to vent his ire. The fact that Kureel was floating effortlessly over the sands, even under the weight of his own burden, just made Rayek all the more certain of it.

"...head-rotten, rump-forward, jackal-poking, moon-addled..."

Kureel tossed his head to clear a heavy lock of tawny hair from his face, then glanced over one shoulder at Rayek. His lean, sun-bronzed face was a mask of innocence.

"I'm sorry, Rayek, did you have something to say?"

Rayek glared up at him in response. "The same as I said before -- you're only delaying this problem by displacing these beasts instead of killing them. They'll be back at the middens before the full moons. Since I couldn't get your attention before, I thought I would be more creative this time."

"Such effort on my behalf!" Kureel placed one hand briefly over his heart. "I am moved, truly."

A smirk cut across Rayek's dark, vulpine features. "You can go bake on a cactus for all I care, but I had to find some way to entertain myself while being hauled out into the middle of the Burning Waste to indulge your madness."

Kureel snorted in amusement, and was echoed by the peeping trill of the tan-speckled hawk riding comfortably atop his burden. SunHeart was Kureel's newest hunting companion, the most recently hatched of a line of large, intelligent raptors that Kureel had been breeding since uncounted turns before Rayek's birth. He hovered in place a moment, stroking the hawk's chest with the back of one knuckle, then turned his attention back to Rayek.

"If the journey has been so arduous, then let us halt here. We should be far enough away from the village now."

He landed gracefully, then crouched to lower his burden to the sand beside him. Rayek mirrored his crouch, slowly withdrawing his power back into himself. He saw the bundled jackal puppies to the sand with a gentle bump before rolling their mother to the ground as well. Kureel spared the starry sky a glance out of habit, but finding no moon to mark time by, he went back to the task at hand.

"The Preservers did their work swiftly," he said. He tucked his hair back behind his ears as he leaned in and began cutting away the pristine white strands of the cocoon. "So," he went on, "Yeyeen's powders should still be in effect, but take care all the same. I doubt it would please your pretty healer to show off her skills by reattaching your fingers."

  
Now it was Rayek's turn to snort. He flipped the the fine, bone-handled knife at his hip out of its sheath and joined Kureel in his task. "Leetah's no more mine than the moons are yours. And she's more Lord Winnowill's than anyone's since she became one of the Chosen." That knowledge ached still, but it was a distant regret if, indeed, it was still a regret at all. He had not lost Leetah; they were both Chosen now. He had hoped, however, that their shared honors might bring them closer instead of crystalizing their differences.

"Like calls to like." Kureel punctuated the statement with a shrug. A gentle breeze stirred the white silk of his tunic. All the Chosen wore loose white garb and gold ornaments, but Kureel wore leather armor day-to-day as well: a gauntlet and spaulder on his left arm to allow SunHeart a safe perch when she needed it. "You can't expect healers and hunters to share the same interests forever. Though, speaking of Lord Winnowill's Chosen, when are you going to finally let me look you in the eye?" 

"When I've earned the right." From the first day of his acceptance into the ranks of her elite, Winnowill had offered to reshape him to the stature of her original Chosen, those who had come with her from their distant mountain home turns so long ago, and each one in some way gifted with the old powers. It was temptation that whispered to him still, to stand shoulder to shoulder with his fellow Chosen in the most literal way, but it wasn't a gift he could accept yet. Not until he was satisfied that he was worthy. Not until he was the best of them all.  


Leetah, of course, had never shared that view. Winnowill had made the offer to her favorite pupil as soon as she'd shown sufficient skill to join the Chosen, and Leetah had accepted with never a doubt as to her own worth. 

The final threads of the cocoons parted beneath their knives. The elves retreated with all haste, heading for the higher ground of a rocky outcrop to watch the groggy jackals find their feet. Rayek, now less his load of dead weight, launched himself toward the best vantage point in a surge of magic. He landed lightly and tossed a smug look back at Kureel and his more sedate flight.

"Well done," the other remarked mildly, coming to rest slightly further back on the ledge. "If this were a contest, I am sure I would be most vexed."

Rayek rolled his eyes at the lack of reaction and cast his gaze back over the desert. The sands of his home were a torturous, barren stretch beneath the sun, but that knowledge seemed somehow far away when looking upon the restless beauty of the dunes shifting under the gentle caress of the night winds. So deep was his contemplation that he never realized that Kureel was moving...until the other planted the toe of his sandal against Rayek's rump and pushed. Rayek cursed, pinwheeled his arms, and finally managed to concentrate enough to jerk himself upward in clumsy flight. It was undignified, but far less a risk than trying to recover his concentration during a plummet.  


"And," Kureel went on with a drawl, ignoring Rayek's withering glare, "if this were a contest, I would no longer be vexed. That is a dangerous habit of yours, Rayek, to mistake a single triumph for more complete victory. A rattletail may still bite, though it's head be struck from its body."

"You were the one who encouraged me to push myself." Rayek's tone had gone sulky. Though Rayek had been a hunter in his own right for tens upon tens of turns, the occasionally acerbic lessons of his teacher had a way of reducing him to a shamefaced stripling.

"I do not recall teaching you that the world is so safe that you should seek battles where none exist." Kureel cut his words off in the next moment, as SunHeart swooped down toward them, filling the air with excited trilling. Her talons scraped lightly against Kureel's spaulder as she lit upon his shoulder just long enough to tug his hair, then took off again. "She's found something." Kureel took to the sky after his hawk, trusting Rayek to follow. He stayed in SunHeart's wake as she lead them back toward the low mountains that formed a protective barrier around Sorrow's End. It had taken the rock-shapers of their tribe years to form the village's defenses: jagged foothills laced with complex paths that would narrow unexpectedly or lead to dead ends. The hills were a dangerous place to be caught in the heat of the day, for the sun turned the sharpened obsidian obstacles into a maze of burning hot razors, easily navigated only by those who had run the trails for years.

Rayek's heart leapt into his throat as he spotted the crumpled form on the lowest trail. Long limbs tangled gracelessly with leathery wings on the sand. There was no movement, no call or send for help.

"Tyldak!" Again, Rayek landed before Kureel and raced ahead, ignoring his companion's sent cautions. Tyldak was the farthest-ranging scout of Sorrow's End. Using a lightweight glider of leather and metal to augment the flight granted by his powers, he alone could lightly traverse the dangers of the Burning Waste. With ease and grace that drew admiration from even the other Chosen, he flew untouched among the clouds as the torturous heat that stole the strength even from the hardiest elf simply lifted him to the safety of the sky and out of reach of harm.

Until now, it seemed.

Rayek swallowed hard as he pushed one of the glider's wings aside to examine his friend. He could smell the blood still fresh on Tyldak's clothes and skin, but the night hid the full extent of his injuries from view. "He's badly hurt, but there's so little light. I can't see where he's bleeding from. Kureel..." His fingertips brushed splintered wood: the broken end of the arrowshaft embedded in Tyldak's flank. Even the faint jostle of Rayek's discovery drew a weak, pained moan from Tyldak. "He's...Kureel, he's been shot. That means..." 

"For now, he's alive," Kureel snapped in return. "That's all that matters. Everything else can be weighed later in council." He dropped to one knee beside Tyldak, who had fallen silent again. Kureel drew his knife, this time to cut the scout free of his glider with the utmost care, navigating almost entirely by touch. "He's not bled out yet, Rayek. Be swift. Run ahead. Bring back Leetah or Lord Winnowill. I'll guard Tyldak until you return."  


Rayek nodded once, already on his feet. He spared Tyldak a last, desperate glance, then threw himself into the dark. These rocky paths were where he'd played and learned the ways of the hunt since childhood; were he blinded, he could have still picked out the swiftest, smoothest trails by memory alone. His sendings flew ahead of him, faster still, urging the healers to make haste and meet him at the mouth of the northwest pass. And yet, all of this speed seemed as nothing, for the smell of the blood drying on his hands spurred him on with an urgency that could not be satisfied until his tribemate was made whole and the safety of the village secured.

 

* * *

 

 

Flickering, unsteady lantern light leapt and faltered across the rocks as Winnowill's zwoot tugged against the lead rope in Rayek's hand. On most nights, saddle-lanterns would be proof against any predator, but that the smell of blood emboldened even the most timid of the desert hunters was knowledge primal enough to cause even a dim-witted zwoot to grow restless.

Winnowill had no concern for the night's dangers. From the moment she and Leetah had dropped to their knees beside Tyldak, her world had narrowed to three hearts: the weakening flutter of Tyldak's pulse striving to live on despite all that he had already endured; the desperate pounding in her own chest as she tried to shape flesh to expel the shattered arrowhead without allowing the last of Tyldak's precious blood to escape along with it; and the steadying guide of Leetah's heartbeat as she banished pain and mended Tyldak's wounds. Golden light gathered beneath their hands, the glow intensifying as the two of them held death at bay by will alone, and coaxed that fading thread of life away from the brink of the void.

And then, as the healers spent their last strength, the healing light vanished, leaving only the lanterns.

  
"Lord Winnowill!" Kureel's strong arms were there to catch her before she could slide to the ground, but Winnowill struggled against him, reaching out with her very self for her dying Chosen.

**Tyldak..!**

Darkness deeper than any eye could behold was all the response to her sending...and then that blessed, distant brush of consciousness against her own flooded her with relief so intense that she was nearly overwhelmed.

"He lives, Lord Winnowill." Leetah, her sweet dark sister. The only one in so many long centuries to share in the healer's burden. The only one who understood what it would have cost her had she been unable to save Tyldak. "He lives." Her hand slipped into Winnowill's own, lending her strength enough to regain her composure.

"Thank the High Ones..." Winnowill breathed deeply and rose to her feet, her hand grazing Kureel's cheek in gratitude. "Move him to the travois, Kureel. I would have us back in the village before the sun catches us." There was an unexpected stinging in her palm, then a warm tickle of blood flowing across skin. She looked down in surprise to see her fist still clenched around the detritus of Tyldak's surgery: half of a broken arrow shaft and a few shards of killing flint. "And then we will decide the fate of whatever creature has dared attack us."


	3. Raiders

The sun had not come anywhere near the apex of its daily journey, but already the desert landscape had been rendered all but lifeless. Pitiless heat beat down upon the sands, on rock, and on the worn band of elves and wolves sinking into an exhausted rest. The meager shade of the foothills was the first true luck they’d had in days of miserable wandering, but it was lifesaving.

 

For the first time in nearly three days, neither hunger nor thirst plagued the Wolfrider tribe, but their young chieftain, Cutter, knew no respite. Luck, the magic of the lodestone that Skywise had taken from the Troll tunnels, and their own sharp eyes had led them to these sheltered rocks and the more than double-hand count of hawks nesting among them. The behavior of the birds was strange, far more social than any of the Wolfriders had ever seen from a bird of prey, and fearless at the approach of elves. No one gave these oddities a second thought, especially not with the hum of bowstrings  promising food. The stringy, rank meat of hawks and eagles wouldn’t have been the first choice of any hunter, but it was far better than starvation; within moments, the birds and their guarded eggs were reduced to a feast for empty bellies. A patch of thick-boled sticker-plants filled with chewy, succulent pulp quenched the thirst of elf and wolf alike. Though their deprivation might begin anew tomorrow, for now, Cutter's tribe -- his family -- was sated. That should have been enough for him to sink into the Now of wolfthought, that animal way of living fully in the moment that the Wolfriders and their mounts shared. It should have been enough to allow him rest, untroubled by the problems that could come with the next day, the next hour.

 

And yet, Cutter was troubled. Not every member of his tribe was accounted for. He'd left his friend and age mate Nightfall and her lifemate, Redlance, out among the mercilessly hot dunes. Redlance had started their journey in pain, the aftermath of his capture and torture by humans who'd set their forest home in flames. He'd needed time to recover, but instead, had faced a panicked evacuation, the treachery of trolls, and hard riding through this wasted land. By the end of the second day, he'd been unable to even sit upright on his mount. He'd asked Cutter to leave him, and though it had torn at the young chief's heart to obey, he could not sacrifice all his tribe for the sake of one...or rather, two, for Cutter could not have pulled Nightfall from her mate's side without knocking her down and tying her across a wolf's back. So he'd left her sitting vigil by Redlance’s side with no protection beyond the slowly waxing shade of a few towering rocks that jutted up from the sand in a mocking reflection of trees.

 

Cutter rose from his fruitless attempts at rest. More than one member of his tribe offered him a grateful smile as he walked past, but he was lost in his own thoughts. Had he given in too easily? Food and rest had been less than a day's walk away. He could have ordered them to keep going -- he could have had Moonshade stitch the tribe's cloaks together to fashion a travois for Redlance to help him endure the journey just a little longer. If he'd asserted his authority and kept them both going...

 

No. Cutter frowned, clenching his hands at his side a moment. Redlance's injuries had been too grievous. Riding or not, carried or not, he would have died given a few more hours burning beneath the sun; anyone with eyes could see it. If there was any hope at all to be had in moving Redlance, he had to be taken somewhere where he could have long-term rest, food, and water. Someplace less risky than a single lucky find of careless birds and strange plants. There were sure to be caves among the rocks, true caves deep enough to be dark and cool. Perhaps even deep enough to make finding water a possibility.

 

Or...if there was a valley on the other side of these low mountains, cool and protected...

 

He began walking again and, renewed in purpose, headed up the rocky slopes. On his way, he stepped over a prone elf who'd claimed a patch of shade for his own nap. Despite the mane of white hair that reached the nape of his neck, Skywise was not so much older than his chief, who'd seen fewer than thirty turns of the seasons himself. He was intimately familiar with Cutter’s tread, and groaned his protest without ever opening his eyes.

 

"Cutter, will you please collapse? You're entitled."

 

"Not yet," came the sharp response. Cutter's voice was hoarse with the day's heat and the ever present sand, but he was not prepared to share his thoughts of the moment, not even with the one who was as beloved to him as a brother. "The juice from those sticker-plants is not enough for us!"

 

He continued his ascent, making no request for company, but that made no difference. Weary to his bones and stinging with sunburn as he was, Skywise hauled himself to feet with a sigh, brushing the sand from his dark, belted vest. "All right...I suppose you won't sit still until you've found us a blasted waterfall."

 

Despite his grumping, with his thirst quenched and his belly full of fresh meat, some measure of vigor was seeping back into Skywise's limbs. Even so, Cutter's determined stride quickly widened the gap between them, even on the steepening incline of the mountain. Skywise let him get ahead, picking a more sure and careful path behind him. Soon, it was more than just a disrupted nap that had Skywise frowning. Every other rock formation they'd seen since they'd arrived in this barren land had been worn smooth by countless ages of wind and sand. The rocks lining their ascent were jagged and sharp, as if giant spearheads had been shattered by careless blows from a hammerstone, then swept to either side of the trail to be repurposed later. There was a narrow, unobtrusive path between those strange rocks, wide enough for an elf to pass through easily -- particularly a Wolfrider accustomed to navigating soundlessly between close-growing branches and forest bracken -- but a troll or a human would have had half its skin scraped off trying to muscle through. Skywise doubted that even his own clever and surefooted wolf, Starjumper, could have squeezed his furry bulk past unscathed, and certainly not while carrying a rider.

 

He drew a breath to call to Cutter, but was cut off by a sending that flared bright with astonishment.

 

**Skywise! Up here! Quickly!**

 

Within moments, Skywise had crested the top of the ridge, calling for Cutter as he drew alongside his crouching chief. The urgent questions on his lips were smothered by Cutter's hand slapping down across his mouth and his chief's hiss for silence.

 

**Look!**

 

Skywise followed his gaze down into the hoped-for valley, and his breath caught in his throat.

 

**I...can't believe it.** An unconscious smile of wonder pulled at his lips as he took in the sight below them. High-domed huts with columned doorways and strange symbols dotted the valley below. Orderly clearings of churned earth alternating with green fields; massive, slope-backed beasts walked lazily through them, either pulling strange contraptions or grazing idly. But what truly drew his attention were the graceful beings moving among it all. They were dressed in bright clothing that would have spelled doom in the shade of the woods, dusky-skinned, and no few were taller than he'd expect of a Wolfrider, but...

 

**Who could've known? Elves! Just like us!** He placed a congratulatory hand on Cutter's shoulder. Surely this was better than any waterfall!

 

Cutter pulled away, pinning his companion with a glare.

 

**No, not like us Skywise. They seem more like humans to me!** A low growl rumbled in his throat as he crouched lower still along the ridgeline and turned his attention to the scene below them again. **They have no wolves, no tree dens, and they live in the sun as men do. I don't trust them.**

 

**You don't think they'd help us if we asked?** Skywise's excitement ebbed away as his wolfish caution asserted itself.

 

**We're not going to ask.** The growl died as Cutter began edging away from the ridge, back toward the path. There was water below, and food to be had, even if it meant taking down one of those strange, long-faced beasts to get it. Things that had been all but taken for granted two days ago were now too precious to chance losing. **I learned a hard lesson from the trolls. From now on, the Wolfriders take what they need -- and no reasons given!**

 

* * *

 

Rayek lay flat on his belly among the rocks, golden eyes wide. He'd chosen his vantage point wisely: the shadowed ledge was well above the climbing elves and the wind was in his favor. Best of all, it had height enough to let him see down the other side of the ridge, into the resting place of the newcomers. He was not alone in his astonishment at this turn of events. The rest of the Chosen and Lord Winnowill herself watched the arrival through his eyes, linked through a shared sending. Their emotions ebbed through his mind in a swift current of surface thoughts -- Yeyeen's fluttering excitement, Reevol's detached and analytical curiosity, Aurek's concern. Overwhelming them all was Kureel's rage at the loss of his aerie and hunting hawks, burning white hot through Rayek's mind. Rayek couldn't help but share some measure of his teacher's anger, his stomach twisting as he recognized SunHeart's dappled wings discarded among the offal. Centuries of breeding and training wiped out within minutes, all to provide a meal for barbarous interlopers!

 

And barbaric they were indeed. Their sunburned skin said plainly that they had no knowledge of the land they had traversed. Their clothing was crude and stifling, most of their weapons tipped with primitive bits of hand-chipped flint, like those of humans. Most astonishingly of all, they had sat, coated in blood up to their wrists and elbows, tearing into the raw flesh of their kills with as much pleasure as the enormous, jackal-like beasts they rode.

 

**These cannot be elves!** sent Kureel from his eastern position, his fury still incandescent and terrible. **And if they are not human, then Savah's Mercy should not shield them!**

 

**Hold, Kureel.** It was Aurek who interrupted, his sending considered, calming and cool as the deepest caverns of the desert mountains. **Your anger is understandable, but more blood will not mend the situation.**

 

**And it would be wasteful.** Reevol, bright and keen as a knife's edge, direct as a spear's thrust. **We should plan with a mind toward capture, not killing. We need to learn what the presence of these barbarians means to us. There could be more coming.**

 

**Scouts don't bring their mates and children along.** Tyldak had more experience observing humans in their own lands than any other Chosen, save perhaps Two-Edge. His sending was weak and seemed more distant than the rest, for he slept, recovering from the night's brush with death. **These are nomads or exiles.**

 

Rayek grimaced at the painfully reddend skin of the beast-riders, a mark that screamed ignorance or desperation. **Exiles, surely.**

 

**Would it not be more productive to ask them what they want here instead of speculating?** There was exasperation in Aurek's sending, echoed faintly by Yeyeen, who had been scouting among the western rocks, though her impatience was more unsatiated curiosity than any sense of fairness. **Rayek is but a stone's toss away from them...**

 

**And not eager to catch an arrow of my own.** Rayek's amusement faded as the two barbarians that had crested the ridge -- one with silver hair, and the golden-haired one that had been leading -- made their way back down toward their tribe, new purpose in their strides as they neared the base of the rocks. The pair easily navigated the Swords of Stone, causing Rayek to grit his teeth in frustration. The Swords would have slowed or crippled any human or animal predator, but High Ones! They'd never dreamed to need defenses against other elves!

 

The other Chosen retreated to the very edges of Rayek's mind, leaving him his full focus to observe those below.

 

The barbarians had gone silent, but the intensity of their expressions could only mean that that they were sending. All the same, their new stealth told Rayek much, as did the sudden restlessness that accompanied it. The barbarians had been as surprised to see the village as the Chosen were to see them.

 

Rayek watched, chin pressed to the warm stone, as a slender maiden with short, sunbright curls rose to her feet and locked gazes with their leader. Her jaw was set, her pale eyes blazing against whatever decision had just been reached. The frustration in her every movement gave him hope that she might forget herself and speak. It was a hope in vain, however; a hard look passed between them, and the maiden dropped her gaze. As she turned away to join the others, however, he saw that the barbarian tribe was splitting into two groups. The men were hoisting weapons and mounting the least-worn of their beasts, obviously preparing to depart, while the women and children were slowly taking their feet.

 

Rayek's breath caught in disgust.

 

**They're abandoning their own families!**

 

His outrage was undercut a moment later by Two-Edge. The half-troll's sending, as always, seemed somewhat laborious and heavy, but otherwise no different from that of his full-blood counterparts. **They're sending them into hiding, not turning them out. I've seen it often enough in wandering humans when they plan a raid. And these wanderers will be riding into our home soon enough from the look of it.** The connection quavered for a moment, the half-troll's effort a palpable thing as he tried to focus on a detail through Rayek's sends. **And it seems that hatchet-faced archer below carries the kin of the arrow that struck Tyldak.**

 

**Then we have our answer.** Winnowill's anger swept though their joined minds like a freezing wind. **Whatever these creatures are, elf or other, they strike without provocation. It is past time they learn that we will defend ourselves and our home. Rayek, have they any clear path into the village?**

 

**No, Lord Winnowill, not while they ride. They'll have to take the northern zwoot trail or cut themselves to ribbons. We could cut them off before they even reach the outlying fields.**

 

**Good.** Even her approval was like ice. Despite knowing her rage was not directed at him, Rayek could not suppress a reflexive shiver. **Can you return unseen?**

 

**I believe so. The wind is with me.**

 

**Then make haste to my side, all of you. We must prepare.**

 

* * *

 

Cutter swallowed the dust in his mouth rather than waste his spit. Biting back the urge to growl at these strange circumstances grated almost as badly as the grit between his teeth. He hadn't been pleased with the lone trail they'd been able to navigate on wolf-back. The sharp-edged rock formations that seemed to grow from the slopes of the mountain had forced them run along the ridgeline, exposed to sight of any who so much as glanced up from the valley. The same luck that had brought them through the desert to food and shelter seemed to stay with them, however; the strange elves had drifted back into their huts, leaving the Wolfriders to make a furtive dash outlined against a cloudless noontime the sky. The behavior of these strange elves made sense once Skywise explained -- the sun was directly overhead, making it the hottest part of the day with no shade anywhere except underneath the domes of their den-huts. All the better, so far as Cutter was concerned. The strangers would put up less of a fight if taken by surprise.

 

At last, the their path began to descend, leading them onto a sloping, high-walled trail that curved down toward the settlement. Cutter silently called halt just before they reached the final bend before the path would open up and allow them make an unimpeded run to their goal.

 

**Ride silently right into the heart of them, and carry off whatever food and water you can find.** Cutter sent. **If we're spotted, howl with all your might and grab what you can while they're still scrambling around.** He drew in a deep breath to steady himself. His heart was pounding. His thirst had returned with a vengeance, but there was water below to quench the torments of a land that still seemed as a bad fever dream. All they had to do was take it.

 

With a steady hand, he drew New Moon, the wickedly sharp crescent blade that rode at his hip. His father had left him the sword with his dying breaths, and Cutter prayed that the same audacity that had served his sire well over countless turns of seasons would work in his favor today. He brought the sword up to point the way ahead, even as he squeezed his knees lightly to signal his wolf, Nightrunner.

 

**Wolfriders! To the hunt!**

 

Nightrunner's powerful muscles bunched as Cutter leaned forward. At the softest touch of his heels, the great wolf sprang forward, leading the charge. Cutter heard the drumming of his paws along the baked-hard earth of the trail like a second heartbeat, felt the cooling caress of wind sliding over his reddened skin as his wolf-friend carried him forward. He let himself sink into the hunting Now. All that mattered was the next breath, the next heartbeat, and the pursuit.

 

The rocky walls began to fall away as they charged. The first breath of green, growing life to greet them since the fire had chased them down into the troll tunnels whafted across their senses. A new scent came with it, just as they rounded that final curve.

 

The path ahead was blocked by figures in white. There was one who was pale-skinned, but broad across the chest and shoulders with a troll's muscular build, and another that might have been taken for a Wolfrider if not for the dark skin and amber eyes. The others were all tall as humans, slender and lithe in a way alien to the eyes of the forest-born elves. Had they been any less sunken into the desperation of the moment, less taken into the Now, the sight of these fantastic beings might have brought to mind the ancient tales of the Firstcomers, even the High Ones. But blinded as the Wolfriders were by thirst and the promise of relief at the end of their ride, their strangeness and height were all that stood out. Only one mind stirred enough to question.

 

**Cutter...?**

 

The young chief shrugged off Skywise's send. **Finish the charge! Aim to wound if they won't scatter, but defend yourselves if you must!**

 

He was certain their line would break. Only fools would stand before a wave of mounted attackers, especially outnumbered as they were by wolves and riders. But the strangers were standing their ground as the distance closed, and only the troll and the dark one had weapons at the ready. The creak of Strongbow drawing back on his bowstring seemed very loud in Cutter's ear.

 

The jolt of Nightrunner's missed stride threw Cutter forward in his seat, his teeth clicking together painfully. Cutter tangled his fingers in the wolf's thick ruff, gripping with his free hand and his knees as the wolf skidded and slid as if he'd suddenly hit sloppy mud. From the corner of his eye, Cutter could see Skywise struggling with his own wolf, Starjumper, who was mired up to his haunches in what had been solid earth and trying desperately to pull free. Nightrunner found his footing again, but any relief to be found there vanished as the yelps of surprise behind them suddenly changed to panicked, wolfen screams.

 

Cutter's eyes widened as he got his bearings and took in the scene. The wolves that had charged in behind him had sunk down into the trail up to their withers as if it were deep snow, but were trapped in the hardened dirt as surely as if they'd grown out of the earth. Already, most of the Wolfriders had dismounted and were making vain attempts to help free their fear-stricken, snapping wolf-friends. Treestump, having moved too slowly, was not among them; his legs were trapped in the rock-hard earth as well, affixing him to the back of his wolf, Lionskin.

 

Incoming footfalls snapped his gaze around front again. Incredibly, the brown-skinned elf and pale troll appeared to be preparing a charge against eight opponents. But Cutter only had an instant  to gape at that the tall ones pushed off from the ground in effortless flight.

 

A maiden with a flowing sweep of golden-brown hair swirling around her shoulders darted ahead of the others. A bowstring hummed from somewhere in the confusion, but she dodged the arrow as if the wind itself had warned her of its coming. She cast her hand toward the trapped wolves below, and smoke sprang up from the ground. Another gesture, and the air was suddenly full of brightly-colored, buzzing wings darting among the Wolfriders in dazzling patterns. She laughed, a bright trill incongruous with the cries springing up beneath her. Her eyes fell on Strongbow, who was readying another arrow, and she struck like a snake from above. A black coil tipped with a silver claw sprang outward from her hand; the claw snagged the shaft of the bow, the coil snapped back into her hand and took the bow with it.

 

It all happened within the span of a few heartbeats. Within the next instant, the rest of the flying strangers had swooped in among the Wolfriders like hawks falling upon a meadow of rabbits.

 

The dark stranger was only a few strides away now, spear in-hand. Finally, this was something Cutter understood. Something he could fight. And if there was any part of him now that screamed caution, it was drowned out by battle rage. Howling his challenge, he signaled Nightrunner to a fresh charge, shifting his grip on New Moon to parry the spear-thrust he sensed would come.

 

The stranger dove forward, casting himself not to either side where the wolf's jaws might catch him, but between Nightrunner's forelegs, forcing the wolf to run over him. Cutter tried to urge his wolffriend into a leap to carry him forward, but too late. He felt the impact of the blow as the faintest of shudders, as if the wolf were trying to shake off a fly, but then Nightrunner's stride faltered once again. The wolf struggled to maintain his feet for another faltering stride. Two. And then Cutter's world fell out from beneath him as Nightrunner collapsed, their momentum tumbling them painfully to the ground and pinning Cutter beneath his wolf friend.

 

"No...!" The roughened whisper was all but lost beneath the final, rattling breaths of the mortally stricken wolf. Nightrunner was dead weight now, pressing the air from Cutter's lungs. His head was swimming from the impact with the ground. New Moon had been jolted from his grip. And all around, he could hear the dying cries of his tribe.

 

The battle was visible from where he lay. Already it was almost over. The wolves had stopped screaming and slumped limply in their earthen traps. Nearly all of the Wolfriders had fallen. Scouter, the youngest, had taken up the rear of the charge with Woodlock. He was disarmed now and struggling desperately against two of the white-clad strangers as they pulled him away from the still form of his father, One-Eye, and forced him to the ground. A new shock jolted through Cutter at the sight of Scouter’s face. A single dark eye, bulging with panic, stared out from a blank mask of seamless white. One of the bright-winged creatures darted in close, and spat a new wad of white goo over the eye to finish the mask.  Woodlock dangled in mid-air, held aloft by one of the clawed whips. He struggled weakly, kicking like a dying rabbit. He was surrounded by the bright-winged creatures, and collected more and more of the suffocating white  with each rotation at the end of the whip. And Skywise...

 

Cutter's soul-brother was still on his feet, but engaged in battle with the pale troll. He darted in to swipe at his opponent's throat, but the razor-sharp blade skittered off the gleaming metal barrier the troll seemed to wield with no effort at all. Skywise fell back warily, trying to get within safe range of Starjumper's furiously snapping jaws, but too canny to just turn and expose his back to a troll's hammer. The troll advanced and Skywise feinted forward, hoping to buy himself enough space for a retreat, but the terrain betrayed him. A loose stone rolled out from underfoot and sent him stumbling forward into an overextended lunge. One enormous hand snaked out from behind the shield, engulfed Skywise's sword arm from wrist to halfway up the elbow, and yanked him forward as he brought his shield up. The elf slammed against the metal barrier with brutal force.

 

**Fahr!** Cutter sent Skywise's soulname with pure desperation. He struggled futilely against Nightrunner's body as the troll struck again, leaving Skywise staggering bonelessly, blood running from his mouth and nose. The elf's sword fell from limp fingers as the brute pulled him behind the shield and released the grip on his arm to cover his mouth and nose.

 

**Tam...** Skywise struggled weakly against the suffocating hold, but the sending that brushed Cutter's was already flickering out. **Tam, help me...** The elf went limp against the troll's broad chest, the touch of his find fading like a glint of silver sinking beneath murky water.

 

Cutter writhed to get free, animal desperation leading him to tear at the heavy corpse with nails and teeth, all to no avail. Then the elf who had killed Nightrunner rose to his feet. His burning gaze brushed Cutter's as he strode nearer, raising his spear. The blood coating the metal head had already dried to a dull red, but bright red drops beaded and ran slowly down the elf's dark skin from fresh wounds in his shoulder and stained the white cloth of his hooded cloak. It would be moments before the distance was crossed and the spear slammed home to mingle Cutter's blood with his fallen wolf's. Some small part of his mind not crazed with fury and battle heat might have welcomed it -- a chief who lead his tribe into defeat and death deserved only to share their fate.

 

The hunter rested his sandal-clad foot on Nightrunner's ribs. Wolf-amber eyes burning with challenge caught Cutter's gaze full on. The young chief's will seemed to flow out of him, leaving him transfixed, unable to move or even fight for the next breath as the added weight across his body forced more precious air from his lungs. The dark elf drew back his spear and Cutter sent one final, desperate message to those his tribe still hidden among the rocks, the last of the Wolfriders.

 

**Clearbrook! Moonshade! Run! We are lost! We -- !**

 

Cutters final shock was the sight of the warrior reversing his spear and bringing it down butt-first. The impact of the wood against his own skull seemed an oddly distant thing. Darkness took him before the pain could even register.

 

* * *

 

Rayek stared down at the fallen barbarian chief, prodding him none-too-gently with the blunt end of his spear to assure he'd struck true. His blood pounded in his ears, burning where it seeped from the deep gouges the wolf's claws had left in his shoulder. It didn't matter. The pain was nothing next to his triumph! He'd faced one of the raiders -- their leader! -- and his beast in single combat and bested them both! Even the pride of his first kill was nothing compared to this. Only his initiation into the Chosen came close...and had he not just proven himself more than ever worthy of his position? Had he not slain the beast and lain the rider low?

 

"Daringly done!" Rayek turned his head to see Yeyeen at his shoulder, hovering a few fingerlengths above the ground. Her bright eyes regarded the still chieftain with unveiled curiosity. "You had far more of a struggle than we five. Did you know that the Jackal's Dreaming works as well on these riders as it does on their beasts?"

 

"What?" Rayek turned his attention to the results of Aurek's set-stone trap. Outnumbered as they'd been, it had seemed sensible to take the rock-shaper's suggestion and eliminate the mounts by turning the ground to mud beneath their feet, then trust to flight and magic to even the odds once the mud was turned to stone again and invaders were on foot.

 

As he beheld the aftermath of the battle, however, Rayek realized that the odds had been far more in favor of the Chosen than he had realized. Jackal's Dreaming was a potent soporific that Two Edge had brought back from his wanderings. Yeyeen had refined the recipe until the smallest inhaled pinch of the powdered herb and root mixture would send any jackal or big-eared fox into a sleep so deep that only severe injury would stir them. That it had worked so well on the invaders' mounts was no surprise. As Rayek looked upon the stranger elves lying still alongside their beasts or draped across their backs, he realized that it’s having a similar effect on the riders was a stroke of luck for both sides. Save for his own wound and those upon the elves and beasts who had cleared Aurek's trap, Rayek couldn't see any injury to barbarian, mount, or Chosen.

 

"So the powder worked on the outlanders as well," he mused aloud. "I shouldn't look sideways at such good fortune, but it gives us more questions than we had before."

 

"Indeed. And I think Lord Winnowill will be in a better position to answer them than we are are here." She softened the blatant hint with a smile, but Rayek took her point and stepped down to lend his powers in aid of hauling the corpse of the shaggy beast off of its gasping rider.

 

"Not that I envy her the task," Yeyeen added, wrinkling her nose her nose in disgust as a small army of fleas abandoned the cooling body of the dead creature for the dusty, bloodied fur of the barbarian's vest. They set the wolf aside and stood back as Yeyeen beckoned one of the jewel-hued sprites flitting here and there among the aftermath to help bind the raider. The Preserver that answered the summons was a solicitous little creature by the name of Berrybuzz, who instantly went to work at its task with single-minded intensity, pausing only when it needed to direct Yeyeen or Rayek to aid in the wrapping by using their powers to rotate the unconscious elf.

 

Preservers, as they were called, were tiny, sexless beings shaped something like an elf, but with bird-like feet and brilliant wings about a handspan wide. The talkative little creatures had arrived in Sorrow's End with Winnowill's band and been invaluable to the SunFolk from the first. Though they could be useful scouts, their main value was their "wrapstuff", sticky white threads that all Preservers spat from their mouths. These threads were strong and silken, able be worked into thread for weaving rope or clothing, but most importantly, they contained a type of magic unique to the Preservers: anything wholly cocooned within wrapstuff  became unaffected by the passage of time. Crops would not sprout or spoil, water would not go stagnant, meat would remain succulent and even live creatures so encased slept indefinitely without need for food or drink and with no awareness of anything save dim dreaming.

 

Two-Edge approached as the chieftain's wrapping neared completion, his shield slung across his back and hammer hanging from his belt. A dose of the sleeping powder had stilled the snapping wolf, and another had assured that the silver-haired elf he dragged along beside him would remain unconscious.

 

He started to relinquish his hold on his captive's vest, meaning to dump him aside for the next available Preserver, when a glimmer of metal caught his eye. The sight of the crescent-bladed sword lying on the ground not so far from the wolf's corpse brought a satisfied smile to Two-Edge’s face.

 

"Well," he murmured as he approached, "I suppose that decides things. To ice and war it is." As he stooped to lift the blade, the fragment of stone hanging from about his elf's neck seemed to leap toward the sword and clung with the tenacity of a living thing. Intrigued, Two-Edge separated the two with an careless tug and moved to examine the stone -- and he who wore it -- with keen interest.

 

It was not Two-Edge's usual way to take part in the gentling of prisoners. There were those among the Chosen with more skill and interest both in such matters, and his own concerns tend to encompass longer term goals than the bending of a few mortal wills.

 

But, he conceded as he watch the oblong chip of stone twirl on its thong and orient itself northward again and again, he could perhaps make an exception in this case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains dialogue lifted exact from Elfquest v.1, issue #2, namely Cutter and Skywise's conversation just prior to and during the discovery of the Sun Village. If you'd like to see how that conversation played out in canon, it's available for free (legal!) reading here: http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics3.html


	4. Art - Rayek and Kureel (potentially NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potentially NSFW image below.

This was purchased as a gift for my lovely beta-reader, who has decided that Rayek x Kureel are the best thing ever. Art by [Ruth.](http://ruthimagination.tumblr.com/)

 


	5. Memory

While the Chosen were preparing their prisoners for transport, others prepared to receive them. Winnowill and Leetah set out side-by-side on a narrow path into the foothills, making their way to a deep, seldom-used cave to prepare for the healers’ part in the capture. Tyldak accompanied them; though both healers would have preferred he continue his recovery, he refused to submit to the indignity of being left out altogether. 

Early experience with the gentling of humans and animals within the Sun Village had made Winnowill mindful of the lives under her care in ways that she had all but forgotten within the confines of Blue Mountain. A single foaming jackal could endanger an entire village, and not for the sake of memory or revenge would Winnowill risk her villagers so. It was unthinkable that the barbarians would simply be carried into the heart of the Sun Village without first being purified in these caverns. Long before Leetah had been accepted into the ranks of the Chosen, Winnowill had impressed upon her that a healer had to protect her people from dangers beyond the relative simplicity of torn flesh. Even as they shared in the sight of the embattled Chosen’s inevitable victory and saw the felled barbarians prepared for transport, the healers had turned their skill to the secondary defense of their home.

Though it had been years since any feet had trodden the cavern stone, the healers stepped into the dark without fear. A thought from Aurek, who had shaped these caverns with his own hands centuries ago, had opened the sealed entrance even before they had left the confines of the village; there was no need to worry that desert creatures might have taken up residence. 

Despite her sure steps and outward calm, Winnowill was less than serene. She’d had faith in the abilities of her Chosen and in her plans, but all it took was an instant of carelessness for a life to be lost. A moment of letting down their guard...

They reached the main chamber and set their hand lamps and bags down on the nearest of the half-dozen waist high stone platforms rising from the floor. The air here was damp compared to the arid skies outside, as well as warm and tinged with pungent sulphur. The ear-tickling trickle of water over rock echoed faintly around them. Winnowill took a skin of oil and three wicks from her bag before crossing the room in measured steps, taking care to avoid the channel running along the eastern wall.

The caverns did not bring Winnowill pleasure per se, but she found them reassuring in their own way. Every human that passed through this place was a threat brought low, taking its first small steps on the path to usefulness. But today, the sturdy rock did little to steady her and the dreams of the night before had left too many memories close to the surface.

She lit the lamps with steady hands, but her mind cast back to brighter lights that had burned without smoke. She remembered Savah, standing tall and regal, as she’d smiled out upon the village from her dais at its very heart. The lanterns she had willed lit had been but a poor echo of the gentle beneficence that radiated from within her, that drew every heart to her like a travelers to an oasis.

Savah had, in her way, been the greatest of healers.

\--------------------------

_Centuries had done nothing to dull the memory of that night. It had been the time of Flood and Flower once more, the time for the Sun Village to celebrate the passing of the rains and the renewal of life in their harsh homeland. It had been five years since Savah had guided them from their grief in the desert and into this oasis, three since Winnowill had become a mother. That was not nearly enough time to forget what the flight from Blue Mountain had cost her followers, not time enough to soothe the guilt that haunted her nights. But if time on its own had not been enough to heal a scarred heart, there were other balms that lessened the ache._

_Young Kureel, growing tall and strong, the haunted air about him fading by the day. Tyldak and Yeyeen, daring ever-longer flights together as they strove to discover all the secrets of the far-flung desert. And little Two-Edge, Smelt’s final forging, toddling about on plump, sturdy legs. Never had this world seen so unique a child, Winnowill was certain, but all that the Sunfolk had cared about was that he was a child, rare and precious, no matter his heritage. Had Two-Edge not been possessed of a certain stubborn independence from his first steps, he would have run the danger of becoming thoroughly spoiled by a throng of adoring elves._

_Every moment of the festival’s opening stood out so clearly in memory. The inviting smell of fresh-baked bread. The delicate sweetness of the cactus fruit sly Tekshu slipped into her hand, the opening gambit to an evening’s flirtation. The flutes and drums combining to a cheerful melody that nearly drowned the faint, crackling pop of the final lanterns bursting into light. These were the memories Winnowill tried to hold to, how she tried to picture Savah, but her hold was precarious, and always her memories tipped further into the night._

_She remembered when the flutes and drums fell silent. She remembered the shock that rippled through the dancers as Reevol and Aurek, both of them grim faced and clutching their spears tightly enough to squeeze their fingers white, moved into the village leading three humans -- two women and a small girl-child -- at spearpoint. She recalled the horror on Kureel’s face that bled into a killing rage, and how Tyldak throwing his arms around the boy had barely checked his attack, and how a mere gesture from Savah had stilled Kureel’s cries of outrage, but not his quivering fury._

_Winnowill remembered every step Savah had taken from her dais, how her teacher had brushed aside Winnowill’s desperate sending to be cautious with serene confidence. She remembered Savah’s bidding the hunters to lower their spears, her gentle words of welcome having no effect on the starved, shivering creatures clustered together as if to hide from the light around them. There had been only uncomprehending suspicion on the face of the eldest human, a wizened and sun-browned thing dressed in sweat-rotted hides and only a head taller than the tallest Sun Villager._

_How could Savah have known? How could a being who had banished hate and fear from her heart hope to understand the bestial minds of creatures that were but half-memories even to her? What could she have done but be true to her nature, offering gentle speech and a bowl water from her own hands?_

_How could she have known that one step nearer the child would be one too many?_

_Faster than a striking snake had the old one lashed out, knotted limbs lent strength through fear. The stone struck true at Savah’s temple and she’d fallen, eyes wide, limbs spasming and clutching at nothing. Crimson blood pulsed over silver hair, sinking into the sand, and then the lanterns went out._

_It was what happened after that Winnowill could never remember. There was nothing until she came back to herself with Aurek gripping her shoulders, his forceful sendings echoing within the unnatural calm of her mind. The salt of tears stung her lips, counterpoint to a throat raw from sobs...or screams._

_They had been in Savah’s hut. Savah’s body, so much cooling flesh, lay on her bed in quiet repose, cocooned in Preserver silk from toes to knees. Winnowill was dimly aware of a hollow at her core that echoed the glassy emptiness in Savah’s eyes, a vitality that had been summoned in desperation and wasted._

_She had met Aurek’s gaze, seen the fear and guilt there, and felt nothing. She let the silence hang between them as he waited for her acknowledgement. But what was there to say? What words could encompass the enormity of this loss? It had happened so fast. So impossibly fast.  
All it had taken was a moment of vulnerability, and countless turns of life and love had been snuffed out for no better reason than fear and ignorance._

_She had let it happen again._

_The world had come back in trickles and a slow, unwelcome awareness seeping in past the protective cold of the shock. Aurek’s words reached her at last:: the humans had been subdued, but no one knew what to do next. She could hear the villagers outside. Their words blended into one restless murmur, but she heard their sobs and whispers as they awaited word of Savah._

_They had to know that Winnowill had failed them._

_She left the shell of her teacher where it lay and stepped outside. The clean, bright flames of the festival lanterns had been replaced by hastily lighted lamps, dim and smoking. She felt every desperate eye turn to her as she stepped into the light. Their hope had cut to the bone, and yet she could not stop herself ascending the dais._

_“Savah...” Speech threatened to break through her shock; she wrestled the flood of grief back, but the name caught in her throat and fell to pieces on her lips. She tried again._

_“Savah is dead.” Weak as they were, the words carried a sickening finality that struck the crowd silent. Winnowill drew another breath and forced herself to speak again, even over their first sobs of grief._

_“Savah is dead, struck down by the very creatures she would have aided.” She looked past the gathered elves, to the site of the murder. Where the humans had stood was a dome of fused sand. The sight of that immediate problem won back her control. She would mourn later, once her duty to her people was fulfilled. Step by measured step carried her through the crowd. They parted before her, but she saw anger in many eyes, a heat that could not be quenched by tears._

_She lay a hand upon the human’s prison. The stone muffled the faint, useless hammering of fists from within and smothered the cries of fear until they were barely barely perceptible. “It would be so easy to let them die, I know.” These words came louder, with greater surety, but she knew that she spoke more to herself than to any of the elves around her. “We need not even bloody our hands. We could leave them to smother in this prison and let the desert have their bones --”_

_“They deserve no less!” The cry was shrill fury cracking under a burden of anguish and rage. Stripling though he was, Kureel threw off Tyldak’s hold and pushed his way through the others to face her. “They killed my mother! They killed Savah! There’s nothing but evil to them, healer! Animals know more of mercy than they do! Give them no chance to kill again!”_

_Kureel’s words brought murmurs of unease from the other elves. Whatever sympathy they might have, whatever anger and grief might be in their hearts, words of vengeance found little purchase with the gentle Sunfolk. And yet, Winnowill could not help but admire the courage it took to speak counter to an elder before the entire village._

_“My fierce little hawk,” she said, “I cannot fault you for speaking the truth of your heart, but be not blinded by it. Savah’s last wish was that these humans be given shelter and aid. She died in the act of granting them mercy. Do we dishonor our Mother of Memory by pushing her wishes aside even before her body goes cold?”_

_Kureel gritted his teeth and drawn breath to argue; she stilled him with a thought._

_**Wait.**_

_“But Kureel is not wrong,” she continued. “This is the second time in far too few turnings that we from beyond the desert have seen humans kill our own for no reason beyond fear and cruelty. More than that, does not the knowledge of human savagery dwell within each of us, passed down through story and song since the slaughter of the High Ones?_

_“No, they cannot simply be allowed to kill again...” The idea had only been a whisper in her mind as she'd spoken in defense of Savah's wishes; it unfurled fully in that moment._

_“So we will disarm them and hold them here,” she finished, at last turning her full attention to the assembled. “Hear me, friends. I have told you of Blue Mountain, how my people used guile and patience to tame the great hawks whose strength was a hundred times that of any human. If humans can only act as unthinking beasts, then we will again become trainers of beasts. We will let them struggle against our magic until they’ve exhausted themselves, until they know that fighting us will do them no good. Once they realize that violence will gain them nothing, we can show them gentler ways.”_

_She put her hand to the dome again, a gesture that might have been protective, or perhaps claiming. Only one pair of fists hammered from within, and the the desperate beats were slowing. Aurek would have to free the humans soon, before the lack of air snuffed them out completely._

_“What say you, Sunfolk? Shall we leave these beasts to the death they have earned, or shall we grant them the mercy that Savah willed and show ourselves -- show her -- as the better of the two?”_

_Cries of approval, some strong, some tremulous with tears, rose all around her, but Kureel’s silent nod and the wary trust had been most important of all._

\--------------------------

A stinging drop of oil from her tilted lamp reminded Winnowill to take care with her work, but it was healed in a moment and did not take her wholly out of the past. They had learned much from those first three humans. How quickly the young responded to kindness over intimidation. How fixed the older ones could be in their thinking and habits, yet so adaptable once those barriers were broken down. In many ways, for all their short lives, humans seemed far more a part of of the world than the elves who had walked upon it for centuries. And, like the world, they resisted all but the strongest magics. Learning to heal and shape the flesh of the humans that had been brought into into Sorrow’s End over the many years had done more to hone Winnowill’s skills and endurance as a healer than all her time in Blue Mountain. Without it...

Her mind flashed back to Tyldak’s pale, blood-smeared form in Kureel’s arms. A shudder ran down her spine, then she pushed the image away. The stone tables were rearranging themselves, four splitting into eight, forming a circle instead lying along the walls, a sure sign of Aurek’s approach. 

The Chosen arrived shortly after, making their way down the gentle slope of the entry tunnel, wrapped bundles across their shoulders or floating along behind.

“Would you have us bring in the beasts as well, Lord Winnowill?” asked Reevol. He set his two bundles on the nearest table, then stripped away his hooded cloak and the loose shirt he wore beneath, for the task ahead of them had the potential for mess.

“No,” she said. “There is much to do just now. Leave them wrapped and have the hunters of the village take them to a storeroom.” She kept her attention on the cocoons between them, for memory was still strong within her, and Reevol’s silver hair and sharp, noble profile reminded her all too much of his father, even on days when her mind was calm. 

“There is no gain in killing the beasts until there is no more use in them,” she went on, “but we have more pressing matters to attend to.” Not only were there the captured raiders to attend to, but also their mates and children hidden somewhere among the mountains. From a practical standpoint, that could mean trouble later if they attempted some sort of retaliation. For the more immediate moment, however, Winnowill doubted those left free would survive very long in the desert...and they had children with them. No, Sorrow’s End was hers, and she would not allow such deaths here.

The cocoons were nearly all arranged, eight in total. Leetah drew a slim dagger from her belt and began delicately slicing open the nearest cocoon, while Winnowill saw to Rayek’s wounded shoulder herself.

**This was boldly gotten,** she sent. She was not so disapproving that she would diminish his victory by voicing her disapproval before the others, but the coolness in her tone let him know that it was just barely praise. She had long since decided that there was no use in trying to rein in Rayek’s boldness, only in redirecting it. But that did not mean she had to applaud when his daring brought him needless injury.

Her disapproval did little to dim Rayek’s flush of victory, but before he could do more than crook a grin at his lord, a high, surprised cry turned every head in the cavern. Leetah had gotten her cocoon half open and was staring, mouth agape, at its occupant. 

The elf was clad in fur and leather and no taller than most Sun Villagers, but so muscular and broad-chested that he seemed nearly a scaled-down version of Two-Edge. But what had so shocked Leetah was the growth of golden hair curling over the raider’s chin and jawline. Such a thing had never been seen on any elf, Glider or SunFolk!

The stunned silence was broken by Two-Edge’s chuckle.

“Why so amazed, healer?” He stroked the silky white hair growing from his his own chin. “Have you never seen a beard on an elf before?”

The ripple of laughter that passed through the assembled only fanned the indignant spark in Leetah’s green eyes. 

“This is no laughing matter. Kureel is right -- these barbarians are more like humans than elves!” She turned her gaze to Winnowill. “I had only begun to examine him, Lord Winnowill -- I had barely touched him! It stood out like a beacon, I swear by the Lost Palace!”

“Calm yourself, sister.” To see Leetah so unsettled was highly unusual; Winnowill was at her side in another moment. “I will see for myself,” she said as she lay a hand on the bearded elf’s shoulder. The lightest touch was enough to realize what had so shaken Leetah. Winnowill drew back, surprise and revulsion churning in her mind. 

“I would not have believed it...” she breathed. The eyes of the other Chosen were still upon her; she raised her voice rather than send. “These creatures may look as us, but they are mortal! Even given safety and shelter for all their lives, the vitality will seep from their bodies as from a punctured water skin, and they will die.”

“Lord Winnowill, how could this happen?” Yeyeen’s gray eyes were wide with horror and pity.

“Does it matter?” snapped Kureel. “They’re as blood-thirsty as humans. This is just another reason to handle them in the same manner.”

“Your attachment to ignorance is becoming wearisome, Kureel.” There was an edge of impatience to Aurek’s voice. It was gone by the time he spoke next, but flashes of temper from the rock-shaper were rare enough that Kureel fell silent. “We have just learned something new of these raiders. In another hour, we may know more. Let us save our final judgement for when we have a more complete view of the matter.”

“If all the little birds are done pecking at each other,” Two-Edge drawled, “perhaps we could get on with the purges. The sooner we have them ready to go into the village, the sooner we can question them.”

“And the sooner we’ll be ready to hunt the rest of them,” Kureel added.

Rayek frowned, troubled by the persistent viciousness that had taken root in Kureel since last night. He knew that his friend had no love for humans, and rarely took any notice of them at all once he’d finished gentling them for village life. Rayek didn’t blame him for his antipathy. He knew that Kureel had seen his mother killed by humans. He had heard many times the story of Savah’s death, seen the day in shared memory, He had tamed wild humans himself and knew how dangerous they could be. Still, understanding did not mean he at all liked this all-consuming anger that seemed to have driven all other thought from Kureel’s mind. He resolved to speak to his friend once matters had calmed somewhat, to see if he might draw him out of this black mood.

One by one, the cocoons were slit open, the sleeping captives stripped of their clothing and weapons. Light probing from the healers as they mended bruises, scrapes, and sunburns confirmed that the raiders hosted internal parasites as well as fleas. This necessitated a surprisingly delicate implementation of healing power that killed the unwelcome creatures from the outside in, then inducing cramps severe enough to purge the tiny corpses from sleeping bodies.

Once that noisome task was attended to, the captives were drugged anew and cleaned, rubbed down with herbs that would repel the fleas that seemed tp crawl everywhere. The Chosen prepared small bowls of cactus-fruit juice, salted them, and fed the mix carefully down the captive’s throats, restoring liquids and the less obvious, but equally vital, minerals also lost to heavy sweating and the abrupt purges. It was only once they were sure that the capture itself would not finish the Burning Waste’s killing work that the raiders’ belongings were examined for clues as to their origin and purpose.

There was nothing remarkable about their clothing; it was all hides, furs nested with fleas, and serviceably worked leather, all far too heavy for anything but the coldest of winter nights. All they did was confirm the impression that they had indeed traveled far. It was the weapons and adornments that were such a puzzling collection -- knapped flint spear points and clay beads were carried alongside gold bangles and smithed blades. Two-Edge carried several weapons out into the sun for closer examination and returned to give his verdict.

“Trollwork,” he announced. “The blades and the axe head are, at any rate. Half of the handles are wood or bone. Fully metal weapons were likely too much to trade for often.”

“Or they were stolen,” Tyldak suggested. His temper was not the best; his recovery meant that he’d been forced to sit aside for most of the work, and it had left his pride smarting.

“I doubt so.” Two-Edge gripped the axe and held it aloft to illustrate. The weapon was laughably small in his calloused grip, and would have been undersized even in the hands of the Gliders. “These are weapons of troll make, but useless in troll hands.” The half-troll’s thick lips twisted into a wry grin. “Unless you think they happened to waylay well-armed children, of course.”

“So perhaps they lived peaceably with troll neighbors,” Yeyeen suggested. Aurek nodded his approval at the thought, but Reevol spoke first.

“Not necessarily.” Reevol had been examining the gold torque fitted around the neck of the barbarian leader, and now drummed his fingers idly against the sleeping elf’s collarbones as he turned over this new thought. Rayek fought down the urge to glare at him, for there was no use in being possessive. Lord Winnowill always took responsibility for taming the leaders of any human scouts who came too close to Sorrow's End. And he would not be left idle regardless. There had never before been so many captives in Sorrow's End at one time before (with more to come!). A task this large would mean that even the Chosen who normally left such duties to those more inclined to them would be taking part.

Reevol straightened and spoke again.

"Trolls are cavern dwellers, while everything about these strangers suggests that they live above ground as humans and elves do. It's difficult to raid a people whom you can't easily get at, so the choices are to barter or go without. But just because they traded with the trolls doesn't mean that they're peaceful; it may have been a simple matter of necessity."

"With respect, Reevol," Tyldak said, "I don't care a steaming zwoot pile how they treat trolls if they're attacking us. Kureel's right. There as much a danger as the humans and we should treat them the same way."

Winnowill looked up from her contemplation of the still forms ringing the cavern, her expression unreadable. "I have heard you all, and I have investigations of my own that will require my full concentration. Make use of the springs and wait for me to join you."

Once they were gone, Winnowill paced the circle, preparing for her own sort of hunting. Her mental powers were not so great that she could catch waking thoughts, but in the latter years of Blue Mountain, she had honed her abilities to where an unguarded moment of sending or a very intense dream could be snatched from the air as a raptor might take a bird on the wing. But it had been a very long time since she had practiced such intrusion. It would take concentration...and there were other reasons she would rather her Chosen not see her at this work.

She stood over the nearest captive, the brown-haired youth whom the healing had told her was son of one of the more horrifically scarred raiders. She lay a hand upon his bare shoulder and let her power flow through him again. Her awareness followed the flow of healing energy and sank into his body, allowing her influence to flow through every fiber of muscle and bone as she probed ever deeper. She wanted answers to both the invasion of her home and the secret behind that elusive, fatal whisp of mortality bound up in what should have been ageless flesh, and she meant to have them. Her healing energies teased along his nerves, an almost idle spill of energy that sent pleasure humming through his body. His breath quickened. Their minds brushed as his dreams grew more vivid. Between his pale thighs, the lad’s member darkened and stirred to life. The image of the delicate maiden who had thought to defy the barbarians' leader flashed between them, all naked grace. The greening aroma of ancient trees in new spring leaves and the deep, scent of decay in life-giving soil seemed to draw across Winnowill’s senses with each breath.

Intrigued, Winnowill changed her approach; where she’d granted pleasure, she now bestowed pain. Discomfort prickled along his nerves, growing in intensity until it had deepened into a muscle-cramping agony that left the youth shuddering in his unnatural sleep. Sweat beaded on his skin as the character of the dream changed. The cool breezes that danced over bare skin were replaced by the memory of searing heat and acrid smoke. Woodland shadows turned red and flickering, then vanished altogether beneath a blazing sun.

As she refocused her attention, Winnowill brushed her fingertips over the youth's brow, a tender sort of apology, in part for the pain she had just given, and what more was to come.

She abandoned his dreams to whatever track they would take, then tightened her focus, seeking out one particular area of his brain. Her target would have been nothing to the naked eye, one more grey fold of flesh among many, but to a healer of her experience, it was plain to see as an eye or a limb. It was the area that came surged with blood, and glowed with energy whenever one elf sent to another.

Carefully, so carefully, she gathered her power around some of those delicate connections, each one finer than a strand of split silk, and twisted them back on themselves. The principle of such flesh-shaping was intimately familiar to her; she had used similar methods to bolster her son’s all but vestigial ability to send, for what mother would suffer her child to be bound to the lonely isolation of flesh for all eternity due to a mere chance of blood? But Winnowill knew full well that isolation was a useful tool when molding the wills of humans, and so she traced back the steps she recalled taking with her son to cripple the sending of the youth under her hands. 

She withdrew her power the moment her work was complete and walked on without testing her work.

The barbarian leader was next. He was but a handspan older than the boy she had just left lying in the sweat of his nightmares, but all pity and softness left Winnowill’s face as she approached. He had attacked her people. That was an outrage that left no room for mercy. Once her power flowed within him, she lingered in his pleasure only long enough to confirm that he also had memories of the woods, then spurred him into pain and nightmares. Once again, she beheld visions of flame and destruction, though this time a pair of glowing, slit-pupiled eyes glared hatefully at her through the smoke.

The flesh-shaping took but minutes, and this time she lingered to test her work. With both hands braced on the captive’s shoulders, she sent to him, focusing her contained fury and disgust until it was an obsidian blade stabbing down into the deepest reaches of his mind. The barbarian’s heart pounded in response, so fierce and wild that his pulse twitched visibly at the thin skin of his throat. He jerked and writhed like a dying thing within her grasp, but it was not trial enough. Winnowill poured the hate of centuries into her assault, watching through narrowed eyes as he bared his teeth in an aimless, futile threat. He arched desperately, his chest heaving with silent screams that would never find release. 

Finally, she released her hold upon him and he fell back to the stone, limp save for the occasional aftershock tremoring through his body. Her work had held. Such sustained agony in even an unconscious mind should have triggered an instinctive call for help to any nearby ally, had he been able to send thoughts as well as receive them. 

Satisfied, she moved on to the next captive.

\--------------------------

Behind a partition of crystal-studded stone, the Chosen stripped away their stained garments and stepped carefully into steaming pools fed by hot springs. The noontime heat seemed a distant memory within the slight chill of the caverns, and the cleansing heat was welcome after the distasteful work of the day.

Rayek settled himself on one of the submerged ledges at the far end of the main pool. He closed his eyes, not bothering to hide his sigh of satisfaction as the tension in his shoulders seemed to seep out into the water. A send of greeting prompted him to open his eyes, and he smiled at the sight of Leetah heading toward him, as sure and graceful in her willowy body as if she had been born to Blue Mountain instead of the Sun Village. He still found it somewhat disorienting that he needed to look up to meet her eyes these days, but once he did, the strangeness would fall away as if it had never been. Her eyes, her scent, the banked embers of her hair, and the luster of her dark skin, it was all familiar beauty that none of the Glider folk could touch -- not even his adored Lord Winnowill -- and it had changed not at all. 

**My eyes see with joy,** she sent, and sat beside him. Her new height had not entirely stolen the lush curves at her hips and breasts, he noted, admiringly and not for the first time. Though there was some teasing in her use of so heartfelt a greeting after a separation of so little time, he could also feel her relief that her oldest friend had returned from the capture with only minor wounds. 

Before Rayek could assure her that it had all been simple enough, Two-Edge arrived, throwing small waves ahead of him with each step. He planted himself beside Leetah, who immediately took great pains to pretend he did not exist. That it was a difficult fiction to maintain given how promptly she turned away, nose in the air, made no difference. 

“Oh, sweetest of healers!” Two-Edge lay one calloused hand over his heart. “Surely one small jest from a lowly smith, who delves in the dirt and dwells in soot, could not matter so much to she who holds the power of life and death in her hands!”

The dramatic entreaty broke off with a sputter when Leetah, swift as a cat, struck the water to splash him full in the face. Any attempt to make the rebuff truly sting, however, was ruined by the smile tugging at her lips.

“If you were so in awe of my powers, O ‘lowly smith’, you would have better sense than to tweak me so. Let that be a lesson to you.”

Their byplay evoked laughter from the other Chosen...except for Kureel, who had retreated to one of the side pools. He was quite by himself and his expression remained stormy. Rayek considered for a few moments, then sent a wordless apology to Leetah. She brushed her hand across his beneath the water.

**Go to him, bold one. I will see you by and by.**

The short walk to the other pool was nonetheless ample time for Kureel to note Rayek’s approach. Rayek sat close enough to make his offer of company clear, but left Kureel to his personal space.

**You look as if you could use a friend.**

**I could use leave to wring the necks of those half-height humans.** The anger behind the words was real, but the crueler intent had been tempered by their victorious battle and the work that had come after.

**They’ll harm no others,** Rayek reminded his old teacher. **We will see to that.** He moved close enough to lay a hand on Kureel’s shoulder. **I am sorry about SunHeart and the others. She helped to save Tyldak’s life. I’m sure that won’t be forgotten.** More hesitantly, **Was the aerie wiped out completely?** He knew that Kureel would, on occasion, collect eggs from a mated pair of hawks and have the Preservers wrap them so that he might reintroduce promising blood back into the line later. Or he might do it just to give inexperienced parents the lighter burden of only one chick in the nest as opposed to two or three. 

**Completely.** The reply was bitter and oozing darkness. **I would have to go hunting the mountains for wild stock and start afresh. And it would not bring SunHeart, Mantle, or the others back.**

Rayek hid a wince. He had probed this particular wound too clumsily. **I am sorry. For the lost work and your pain.**

**My thanks.** Kureel’s was looking past Rayek, toward the cleansing chamber. **Do not worry for me -- I will be more myself once I have work before me.**

Rayek nodded in reply. As he had been in most things, Kureel had been Rayek’s mentor in the training of beasts and humans. With both he had persistence that would wear away mountains, but he was as unfeeling with humans as he was patient and empathic with his beasts. To Rayek, the mystery was how all of his subjects seemed to wind up unfailingly obedient, no matter his methods.

For his own part, Rayek found he was far better at hunting animals than taming them, and preferred to leave his human charges with more initiative once they realized who was in charge. His thoughts turned again to the barbarian he’d captured, wondering how long it would have taken to turn him docile. Surely not long; wild or not, he was little more than a youth. Lord Winnowill would have him tamed within a hand of days. Possibly two.

Still...he did regret that he wouldn’t have the chance to pit himself against that wild spirit a second time.

He took his leave of Kureel and drifted back to the main pool, where Leetah was in conversation with Tyldak as she tended him. Or, if the expression on his face was anything to judge by, Tyldak would have described it as mothering, and not in complimentary tones. Rayek was sitting with them, offering Tyldak respite by distracting Leetah with conversation, when Winnowill returned.

She seemed to drift into the room, her movements dreamlike and contemplative. She paused at the lip of the pool and let her silk robes fall to puddle around her feet. Her hair trailed behind her in a gleaming train as she entered the pool. Each step seemed to leave her more aware of her surroundings than she had been a moment before; by the time the water closed over the pristine swell of her breasts, her focus was entirely on the elves around her.

**Lord Winnowill...** 

She raised a hand to ward off the concern behind Leetah’s send.

“I am well, sister, only tired.” It was more than simple expenditure of power that left her reluctant to send in return. The rage she had spent in those personal intrusions had left her unsettled emotions in even greater tumult, and the intimacy of healing always left her feeling vulnerable. Vulnerability was not something she could afford, that lesson had been learned hard and well. She would give her people answers, but keep her mind her own for a while longer.

“I have searched deeply and gleaned more knowledge of where the barbarians came from and why they are here,” she said. “The fled from the woodlands where they dwelled, driven by a great fire. How they came to find themselves here, I could not discern, but I had the sense that they have come a great distance. There were perhaps others with them when they started their journey, but I do not think more will follow them. Those Rayek saw among the foothills are all that remain.”

Reevol nodded understanding as Winnowill shared her report. When he spoke, there was fresh respect in his voice, prompted by fresh evidence of his lord’s power. “It seems to be the way of elves, that there are never very many to a territory. In all our time in this desert, we have seen no evidence of other SunFolk. Nor were there any elves before us who survived upon leaving Blue Mountain. If these strangers are all that remain of a single tribe, it seems to me that we have a duty to keep them here for their own sake as well for our own safety.”

“And here I thought it was Kureel’s hobby to make pets of wild things.” Yeyeen sighed at the disdainful look she earned from Reevol. “Oh, don’t look so sour. I do take your meaning: the poor things can’t survive in the desert, but we can’t just let them roam through the village, stealing as they will and attacking our people. We _have_ to tame them.”

“There is more.” All went silent again as Winnowill spoke. “I believe I have uncovered the root of the barbarians’ mortality.” Every eye had been on her before, but the heightened curiosity of the Chosen was now all but palpable. Winnowill paused to collect her thoughts, wondering if the compassion that had been in evidence only a moment before would survive this fresh news. “The barbarians are of mixed blood. Whenever it first occurred, it was so far back in time that now it is little more than a trace, but as surely as my son carries the blood of elf and troll within his veins, these raiders carry the blood of elves and mortals.”

“Humans?” Kureel’s lip curled in disgust at the thought.

“No...” Leetah’s eyes, so round that the green was ringed with white, locked with Rayek’s, and she saw from his shocked expression that they had shared the same thought. “Think, Kureel, what you have seen of these strange ones. Their eyes, their teeth, how they fell before the Jackal’s Dreaming...High Ones, it’s not humans they’ve been mixed with, but those beasts they ride!”

“How...how is that even possible?” Tyldak had unconsciously drawn away, as if the very idea were so disgusting he could not bear to be near it. 

“There was once very little that was impossible for our kind,” Aurek pointed out gently. Of all the Gliders, he alone seemed unaffected by the revelation. “I will see if I may draw the memories out for you all later, but these are questions that can wait. As has been said, these strangers do not fare well in the desert. We should not leave them there longer than need be.”

“Agreed. There is only the matter of allocation, and I have made my choices there. Reevol...” Winnowill nodded to each of her Chosen as she spoke their names. “...take the fair-haired one that rode at the back of the charge. If I have any eye for bloodlines, he has family hiding out in the Waste. He may be the easiest to speak reason with.

“Kureel, the scarred one is in your care. Yeyeen, take charge of the spearman. Tyldak, take the youngest.” Tyldak drew breath to protest, and her words grew more firm. “I know you have little interest in such matters, but you will be some time recovering from the harm done to you. Leetah and I were able to cleanse and seal your wounds, but we could not draw your blood from the sand and pour it back into your veins. You will be bound to the village until your glider is repaired besides. You will have time enough to educate one barbarian cub.”

Tyldak yielded with a quiet sigh of acceptance. “Yes, Lord Winnowill.”

Winnowwill’s dark gaze fell upon Leetah next. She was one of the most reluctant when it came to handling humans, but all hands were needed in this. “The elder is yours, sister. I would ask you to study him closely, so that we may know what frailties to expect as these beast-blooded ones age.”

Leetah could not hide her distaste, but nodded all the same. “Yes, Lord Winnowill.”

“Mother.” Two-Edge stood, disturbing the water so that it lapped gently against his broad chest. “If you have no objection, I’ll take charge of the silver-hair. He may prove useful to me in the long game.”

In truth, Winnowill was surprised by the request, for her son typically had the least interest in such matters. She’d also thought he might leave smithing duties to his apprentices for a time and go into his warren of tunnels for an errand on her behalf. But his request was so unusual curiosity alone would have prompted her to give in to it.

“As you wish.” Winnowil brushed a single trailing tendril of sloe hair over her shoulder. “I will deal with the archer myself. Unless I am very mistaken, he will require long attention and a firm hand.”

An unexpected thrill skipped down Rayek’s spine as he realized what that meant. There was amusement in Winnowill’s eyes as her gaze met his, and he wondered how he had ever thought he’d been subtle enough to keep his interest from her.

“That leaves their leader. Rayek, my brave hunter, would you be willing to spare Aurek the burden of taming this beast?”

“Of course, Lord Winnowill!” He very nearly added his thanks, but held his tongue. He didn’t want to embarrass himself, and could not have explained his excitement to his satisfaction if called to do so. Perhaps he merely anticipated the completion of the battle started in the dusty canyons beyond the borders of the village.

There were other preparations to make, and so the Chosen were dismissed. They finished their bath, dressed, and sent for Preservers to rewrap the barbarians for transport to the village.

**Aurek, hold.**

Aurek paused. Her send had been mild, but his manner as he turned to look at her was not simple obedience; his twilight-blue eyes held concern. There was little more than a century in age between the two of them, Lord of the Chosen and the affectionately-named Father of Memory, and if there was one in the Sun Village who occasionally found Winnowill’s moods less than subtle, it was he.

**Yes, my lord?**

**I still have a task for you, if you would hear it.**

Aurek seated himself on a hump of stone that hadn’t been there a moment before, his gaze expectant. **I have always heard you.**

That earned him the faintest of smiles. **When I skimmed the dreams of the captives, I saw an image repeated repeated time and again: two of their number fallen on the sands in the shadow of a great pillar of rock. One was in despair, the other badly injured.** With the description came the image: a weeping maiden in green with a torn and bruised flame-haired youth limp in her arms.

**They were not with the others, not in the attack or in the hills.** Aurek considered. **You do not think they perished in the Burning Waste?**

**I felt sorrow and concern, but not grief. Not loss. I believe they live...and I dislike leaving loose threads.**

**I doubt you fear any threat from two dying mortals, Lord Winnowill.**

**Fear? No. But a slow death in the Waste is no fit end for any life, and I know there is no rock in all the desert you could not find if you had a mind to. Go ahead of the others to the village. Take food and water, and roust Petalwing from the storerooms before you head out.** Her eyes met his. **Be careful, old friend. And do not fly. We have shed enough blood to raider arrows.**

He did not reach out, but the touch of his mind was very near to a caress. **I shall use all caution.** Aurek rose to his feet as the rock melted back into the rest of the cavern. **These two and those still in hiding...they have offered us no threat themselves.**

**Only through chance.** There was a faint bite to her thoughts now. **Had they made the journey or had their chief allowed it, they would all have descended upon us full strength.**

**Perhaps. But they did not.** He held her gaze steadily, but without defiance. **I will not gainsay your will, my lord. But, as a favor to me, I would ask that you consider the situation carefully before your Chosen return from their next hunt.**

The stone floor at Aurek’s feet opened up, yawning into the darkness of the tunnels he had helped shape over countless seasons had as a quiet failsafe to the Swords of Stone. Without another word, Aurek stepped over the edge to descend gently into the dark. The world closed over him, leaving Winnowill alone at her bath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's what happened to Savah! Apologies for the wait on this one, and many thanks to my long-suffering beta reader. And a warning...this is as light as it gets for a while.


	6. Nightfall

Nightfall’s hopes, fragile to start with, had wilted as the sun rose and the meager shade she and Redlance shared crawled back into the rocks. She’d done what she could to ease Redlance’s suffering -- with her boots, lacings, and bandana, she’d made an awning to keep the sun from his face. On hands and knees, she’d shaded him with her own body, biting down against the agony as her sunburned skin had blistered. She’d given him their last precious drops water, and cooled him with the sweat from her skin and the weak breeze of her breath.

For all her desperate striving, she could see him slipping away with every breath. Neither her words nor her pleading sendings could reach him now. She’d begged him for his soulname, so that she would remember the very essence of him long after his body and spirit slipped away. Trembling with weariness and grief, she had even offered up her own soulname, willing to share the most intimate core of her very self if it would draw him back for a single instant. She could give him a farewell of love, then, something to carry with him into whatever awaited him beyond pain and loneliness. It was the last of herself that she could give, and she gave it with an open heart; however high the cost, it could never equal the joy that his gentle love had given her through the years.

When she gave him her soul, it was only a lonely echo in the darkness of his mind. He had retreated into himself in preparation for death. At that, the tears that she had held a bay slid down her cheeks and fell onto the burns and bruises standing livid against his skin.

Nightfall had faith that Cutter would return for them as soon as he could, but it would be too late for one of them. The shadows were growing longer, offering shade to both of them, but Redlance was beyond any comfort. The faint tremors that gripped him less and less frequently, however, told her that he was not beyond the pain of his failing body. And she could not let him suffer any longer.

**Beloved.** She knelt at his side and caressed his bright, copper-red braids for the last time. **May you find peace in death.** The lump in her throat threatened to cut off her breath, but she swallowed past it and reached for the knife at her belt. One painless cut. Mercy for Redlance. Food for Woodshaver, her wolf, who had stayed behind and suffered through the heat with her. One cut to core out her heart. 

**I’ll howl for you,** she promised. **Every night, beloved, for all of my life. You’ll never be forgotten.** With gentle hands, she turned his head to bare his throat to the knife. Twice she drew back from the cut, tears dimming her vision and her hands shaking as sobs quaked her slim body, but finally she forced herself steady and brought the knife down for the clean death her lifemate deserved.

“Don’t!”

Nightfall startled back before the blade did more than kiss Redlance’s throat. Behind her, Woodshaver rose to her feet, teeth bared. 

A stranger in white stood before them, long out of arm’s reach, but not so far that they should not have heard his approach. In a haze of pain, grief, and heat madness, Nightfall didn’t see his strange clothing, didn’t hear his words or stop to consider what the loose hood of his cloak might conceal. She saw only his height, the mark of the humans that had hunted her people, destroyed her home, and condemned her lifemate to a slow, tortured death. With a snarl worthy of any wolf, she leapt over Redlance’s still form and charged, blade pointed at the stranger's heart.

She’d made it not ten steps when stone bars shot up through the sand inches from her face. She crashed into them, knocking the air from her lungs. A second shuddering impact and pained yelps beside her let her know that Woodshaver had been captured as well, but her eyes were on her helpless lifemate and the lean figure crouched at his side.

“Leave him be, tall one!” she yelled, through the guttural human language tore at her parched throat. She beat her fists against the rough bars, mind racing. She couldn’t let them hurt Redlance again! In desperation, she even threw her knife, but the heat had stolen her strength and the blade stuck in the sand, well short of its intended target.

The stranger ignored her and pressed his long fingers against Redlance’s neck, then just above his mouth and nose. He was on his feet in an instant, every movement bespeaking urgency. He pushed back his hood, revealing delicate features, pale skin, and waves of sandy gold hair. The golden locks draped over his shoulder stirred, pushed aside by a tiny, green-skinned creature shaped like an elf, but with impossibly colorful butterfly wings.

It wasn’t until Redlance was lifted from the sand and lay suspended in midair that she turned her attention back to the stranger, staring in amazement. Her initial question died on her lips as the elf-bug launched itself from the stranger’s shoulder and began fluttering around Redlance, covering his face and hair in a fine layer of what looked like spider’s silk.

“What are you doing to him?” she demanded, though her voice carried less threat than before. Whatever magic this tall one --

‘High One?’ she wondered, inexplicably chilled at the thought.

\-- was using, she had never heard of anything like it, let alone seen it before.

Finally, the stranger looked her way and offered her a smile that held something like relief. That puzzled her, but it wasn’t until he spoke that she realized what had happened.

“My name is Aurek. I was beginning to wonder if your people and mine even shared a common language.”

She’d finally spoken to him in her own tongue.

* * *

She must have been a pretty child before her people were driven into the desert, Aurek thought. Now she was a picture of suffering, from her weeping blisters and heat-chapped lips webbed with bleeding cracks, to the grief and fury that blazed in her eyes. The Burning Waste was killing her from without and within, but she would not yield her last breath so easily. 

Aurek was sure that would be an easier trait to admire if she didn’t seem determined to gut him like a dune rat. He approached the cage he had created with slow, deliberate steps, as if drawing near a restless zwoot looking to kick. Then, impulsively, he levitated her knife up from the sand and let it precede him, offered to her hilt first. 

She watched her blade with wary eyes, but finally reached out to snatch it; Aurek noted with some satisfaction that she sheathed it at once instead of keeping in hand. Only then did he approach closely enough to offer her his waterskin. She accepted the water but remained cautious, taking only two long swallows before handing it back and repeating her question.

“I am Nightfall of the Wolfriders. What are you doing to my lifemate?” Her manner was gentler now, even if her ruined voice could not be. 

“For the moment, keeping his spirit and body from departing each other permanently.” He missed the confusion in her eyes, for Woodshaver attracted his attention by whining piteously at the scent and sound of water. Though he eyed the beast and its great fangs cautiously, he still formed a small bowl of fused sand in one corner of the cage and floated the skin close enough to squeeze out water for her. 

“The webs that surround him are the source of a magic that will hold him outside of time in a dreamless sleep,” Aurek went on. “He’ll have no need for food, water, or air until they are opened again, and his wounds will not worsen. There’s no safer place in the world for him right now.” A fluttering buzz cut off the explanation, as if a giant grasshopper had taken wing in their direction. The jewel-hued creature had returned, leaving Redlance floating cocooned in shining webs. 

“And you can thank Petalwing for that,” Aurek finished, as Petalwing landed lightly on the crook of his elbow. “Well done, little one. My thanks.”

Petalwing, obviously elated by even that mild praise, at once lifted its bird-like feet and strutted the rest of the way down to the palm ofAurek's hand to get a better look at the caged elf. It greeted Nightfall with a flutter of wings and a cheery (if shrill), “Hello, Growler-Highthing!”

Nightfall’s eyes widened. She looked to Aurek once more. “Are you a High One?” she rasped.

He had to laugh at that. “Not even a Firstcomer. Just a very old elf come out searching on behalf of his lord.” He made a flat-handed gesture toward the ground as he spoke; though the movements weren’t necessary, he’d found over the years that were a cue that put most others at ease when he used his powers. Nightfall licked her lips as she looked to him again, but that was all the nervousness she showed as a thin-walled dome out of the sand to shade her from the sun.

“What is a ‘lord’?” she asked, shaping her lips carefully around the unfamiliar word.

“A leader. Rather, someone who is the best of leaders, whose life is to advise, protect, and command.”

His explanation drew a frown. “Our chief’s lock is passed down from parent to child. Being chief is a great honor, but it is not...everything. Our chiefs have been hunters, shapers, tanners…” The faltering explanation stalled as she swallowed painfully. 

**Send,** Aurek said, the word awash with encouragement. **It does you no good to hurt yourself needlessly.**

**Why does your ‘lord’ wish you to find us…** Her thoughts trailed for a moment, then came a great surge of hope that lit up her worn, wary eyes. **Cutter! Did our chief find your tribe? Did he tell you where we were?** Her control was as spent as her strength; her thoughts seeped around the edges of her sending -- the golden-haired barbarian leader, his image accompanied by a familiar, lifelong love. Her utter faith in Cutter immediately shaped her understanding of the situation, allowing her to make sense of how a stranger had found them in this barren place. Surely her tribe must have been too weary to make the punishing journey again, and Cutter had urged this strange chief to send this tracker with his powerful magic to save them!

Aurek quickly withdrew behind his own thoughts. It would be easier to speak lies to her, to let her believe this sweet story until he had her neatly wrapped. He could let her learn the truth of the matter when she woke again, whether before Winnowill or another of the Chosen. In truth, he had no idea what would happen once he had her and lifemate within Sorrow’s End. Winnowill would heed his counsel on many things, but she was inflexible where the protection of Sorrow’s End at the best of times, and these newcomers had roused her ire to an extent that even he had seldom seen, even where humans were concerned. Having just weathered an attack on her home and her people would not incline her to leniency, even on his advice.

But this huntress had fought with everything she had to protect her lifemate, even when he had her trapped and powerless. And now that she had been assured of Aurek’s good intentions, they sat and talked civilly, if not companionably. Whatever else these strange elves were, they were not entirely savage, only desperate and suffering and far from home. Nightfall was as much a guardian as any of the Chosen, and she deserved better than a lie. Perhaps she could even give him insight into some new way to approach Winnowill if she knew could offer a justification for the raid.

**Your chief is in our village, but the circumstances are...complicated.** At least he had some gift for understatement yet, Aurek thought wryly. **Your tribemates attacked us and we were forced to take them captive.** He opened his memories to her, offering to show her the battle through his eyes...

Rejection slammed down between them, as solid as any barrier he could possibly erect, and left him alone in his own mind again.

In sending, there was only truth. But the truth Aurek offered was irreconcilable with what Nightfall knew to be true of Cutter, the measured, far-thinking soul whose honor meant almost as much to him as his life. The notion that Cutter -- Cutter! Who had even offered friendly overtures to humans! -- would swoop down in an unprovoked attack on fellow elves was as alien an idea as the moons falling to the earth. 

In a moment, Nightfall was on her feet again, her blade in hand and her teeth bared. She couldn’t strike this stranger through the bars, couldn’t run, couldn’t even protect Redlance, but she would fight him to the last, even if all it accomplished was that she died a free Wolfrider.

“Child,” Aurek said, raising his voice to be heard over the renewed snarling of the caged wolf, “take a moment and consider your situation. You cannot fight me, only injure yourself in trying. Or suppose I did decide that the risk of bringing you to my lord wasn’t worth coming within range of your blade? What would it benefit you if I decided to leave the job half finished, took your lifemate, and left you here?” 

Her eyes widened, and he knew he had reached her.

“You are no High One,” she growled, her gaze gone dark with fury, “in that much, at least, you spoke truly. You’re as cruel and hateful as any human!”

Aurek resisted the urge to call up a wall of stone for the sole purpose of slamming his head against it in frustration. Instead, he swallowed down his sigh and met her gaze levelly.

“I’ve heard that accusation thrown about today as many times as a cactus has thorns,” was all he said, “and not from the lips of your people.” He gave her a moment to ponder that. “Will you come willingly, or must this be another battle?” 

“I want your word…” Tears of pain and frustration danced on her lashes as her body shook with restrained rage. “Give me your word that you will not hurt him.”

Surprise held Aurek immobile for a moment. “If you think me so cruel, why assume that my word would mean anything?”

“Because it’s all I can do!” The hate-filled look she cut at him could have split mountains, but Aurek couldn’t question the truth there. There was no longer any hope of a rescue, but she would not be parted from her lifemate. At the same time, however, she could not surrender and leave him defenseless. All she could do was try to wring some sort of protection out of the one who would soon be their captor, as thin a prospect as it was. Perhaps some buried part of her did accept that he wasn’t lying, and that had earned him some subconscious benefit of the doubt. 

“Promise me!” she insisted.

“I promise that I will offer him no injury and will shield him as I can.” It was more than she’d asked for, but not, he hoped, more than he would be able to deliver. “Now lay down your blade.” 

She obeyed, tossing her knife underhand between the bars before stretching out on the sand. She folded her hands upon her chest, one holding the other as tightly as if it belonged to her lifemate. She gasped softly when Aurek’s power lifted her from the ground, but otherwise held her as Petalwing began to wrapped her from crown to foot. It was over in minutes, but two large tasks so close together left the little sprite spent and panting as it buzzed back to its perch on Aurek’s shoulder.

“Wrapstuff all gone now,” it sighed, then coughed up one lonely strand by way of demonstration. “What do for growler-bigthing?”

“That’s a good question.” Aurek stroked his companion’s bright wings thoughtfully as he pondered the problem of the wolf. It was still snarling at him, circling the confines of its small cage and making the occasional feint at the bars. “Even if you could wrap the beast by yourself, I could not carry it and two elves. I would have to bury it and return later. But we can’t leave it here.” Already, the wolf was panting again. Aurek doubted his gift of water had done more than take the worst edge from its thirst. 

He let the Wolfrider’s cage sink back into the earth, then floated both cocoons to his side. He considered the situation again, then drew his hood up again and began to walk away. He could feel the animal’s gaze tracking him and his burdens, but he didn’t turn, only opened the ground and made a careful descent into the cool tunnels beneath. He settled the cocoons onto the floor, then lay one hand against the sandy wall and focused himself entirely on the stone around him, spreading his consciousness through the rock until his other senses seemed distant, ghostly things beside the steadfastness of earth and stone. He could sense the bars of the wolf’s cage, each small point of solidity standing out like a beacon. The sand grains disturbed by the wolf’s frantic pacing were clearer to his perceptions than its frantic whining. 

He willed the tunnel shut again; the sand and rock flowed and reshaped themselves overhead until there was nothing but darkness. He felt the cage dissolve into sand again as one might perceive the relaxing of a tense muscle. The impact of the wolf’s paws as it raced to the spot where he had vanished seemed nothing more than the lightest touch against some oddly distant part of his own body. Where the wolf’s breath tickled the sand, he opened the roof again, though the hole was no larger than the loosest circle of his thumb and forefinger.

It was enough to give the animal his scent; with a low growl, it began to dig. Satisfied, Aurek withdrew back into his flesh entirely and lifted his burdens into the air with but a thought. He let his feet fall more heavily than was his usual wont as he walked away, then closed the hole when he was no more than a few yards along the path. He opened another just behind him, this time flinging sand violently upward to attract the wolf’s attention. Again, the paws beating time overhead and the frantic digging. Yes, it seemed the plan would work if the beast didn’t drop dead from heatstroke before they reached the outskirts of the village. He hoped not. Between his burdens and the need to encourage this continued pursuit, it would be a long enough journey back to Sorrow’s End even without the weight of additional guilt.

Aurek let his thoughts drift as he walked. The entire situation with these Wolfriders left him unhappy. The Gliders themselves had once been lost to the Waste, desolate with grief and reeling from shock. It was only the guidance of Savah that had assured their survival. Winnowill remembered that as well as he did, of course, and felt it more deeply. If Aurek owed Savah his life, Winnowill had owed her thrice over for saving her people, her child, and her soul. Savah had allowed Winnowill to forgive herself for failing her people...but there had been no one to ease Winnowill’s guilt over Savah’s death. 

Oh, they had tried, Blue Mountain elves and Sunfolk alike. But violence in the very heart of their new home had reopened fresh-healed wounds, and, in truth, Aurek believed that the Gliders’ anger and grief, no matter how they had tried to hide it, had left their talk of healing ringing false. Too many of them agreed with the treatment of the humans and Winnowill’s odd compromise between revenge and mercy. 

And, truly, it had seemed like wisdom then. Then and for so many years after, when they would capture any human who wandered too close to the mountains hiding the Sun Village; there could be no risk that they would return to their people and spread word of the oasis within the desert. Some did fight and had to be tamed until they learned there was no use in resisting, but others, the exiled, the hopeless, and lost, had seen the prospect of safety and long life among the “desert spirits” as a blessing. And they all had such short lives...that, among all other things, made it easy to justify taking them in, working beside them, and, finally, laying them to rest.

But these were elves. Strange and bestial elves, perhaps, but still of their own kind. He had sent to one without difficulty. They shared a language. Even the circumstances of their arrival did not seem so different from the Glider’s own. Yes, these Wolfriders had shed Glider blood, destroyed animal companions that had been centuries in the cultivating, and attacked their home without provocation. That was not so easily set aside, not even in his mind. But no elf had died at the hands of another. Surely what damage had been done could be addressed by less severe measures than complete taming. 

But then, what measures did they have to address such a situation? And what of the Wolfriders he carried and those in hiding who had never set foot beyond the Swords of Stone? No matter what Winnowill claimed, they were innocent of any part of this attack. 

Aurek sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the pounding in his head. It was no use trying to think on too much heat and too little water. Whatever his doubts otherwise, they had to secure these Wolfriders before the desert claimed them one and all. He could argue his doubts again once that task was accomplished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's Nightfall and Redlance saved (or, you know, at least not dying in the desert), so everyone can stop worrying now. ;) We'll likely be checking in with Cutter & Co. in the next chapter.


End file.
